WEYMOUTH College is celebrating after it was recommended that a process scrutinising its finances should be brought to a close

The Further Education Commissioner, Dr David Collins has been scrutinising the college's finances and following a meeting last week his adviser confirmed that Dr Collins is ready to step back and bring the Structure and Prospects Appraisal (SPA) process to a close.

Poor budget management had previously led to a severe financial deficit at the college.

At the meeting on October 2, the interim principal at Weymouth College Nigel Evans reported that the college has hit its financial and full-time enrolment targets leading to the recommendation the process is brought to a close.

The commissioner visited the college in March 2014 to college to conduct an initial review of emerging financial issues.

Since then Mr Evans and staff have been working with the commissioner and his team as part of the SPA process.

Dr Collins visited the college in May and praised the actions that had been taken up to that point and was delighted with the progress that had been made.

The financial plan for the college was approved in the summer and includes a break-even budget.

The SPA process is now expected to be closed by the commissioner.

Mr Evans has hailed the result as something to celebrate for the whole county.

He said: “It’s absolutely brilliant for everybody. For Weymouth, For Dorset, for the staff and students, absolutely everybody.

“We’re about to post some really fantastic data as well. We’ll be a credit to Weymouth rather than have the patchy performance we have shown in the past.”

Mr Evans paid tribute to the staff for all their hard work over recent months.

He said: “There has been a huge amount of work. What has been a credit has been the staff. They focused all their time on the students.

“It’s fantastic to have a bit of a celebration really.”

The college is now looking forward to what they hope will be more good news with an Ofsted inspection planned for later this term or in the early part of next term.

There is hope that the college will once again get a positive result.

Mr Evans said: “As an institution we aim all the time to be outstanding but we’ll take a minimum of good, that’s about as low as we will go.”